Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Another story about hard times. My buddy describes it as being like working in the steel industry in 1980.

So there are two big Hedge Fund stories behind the WSJ pay wall today. The first is that my old boss, Paul Tudor Jones, is cutting his fees. Again. The second is that the Harvard Endowment, long an internal Hedge Fund of it’s own, is finalizing its long known plan to farm out virtually all of it’s management to outsiders, and going to manage its money by looking across the full spectrum of investment options.

Personally I think both of these strategies are going to be effective, but I have a great deal more to say about the Harvard decision than the decision at Tudor, even if the only thing I know about what’s what at Harvard is speculation. So let me speak to the Tudor story first.

Paul is smart. Very smart. He’s worthy of his legendary status, both professionally and personally. His firm is scrupulously honest, on a level thats is as hard to describe, as it is to fully appreciate. There are grey areas in the laws regarding hedge funds, but Tudor not only avoids breaking the law, and also the grey areas as well. They also avoid getting close to the edge of the grey areas, and sometimes depending on your perspective, even looking at the grey area or wearing something grey, is strongly frowned upon and will get you a pleasant but stern and seriously minded talking to.

In my opinion he’s cutting his fees not because he isn’t the best, but because being best in the old structure of the Hedge fund industry, isn’t worth what it used to be. Betting on Paul and his team is as good as it’s ever going to get. But it’s my opinion that's because of the way the markets have changed and the way Hedge Funds are structured to operate in them, it’s just not gonna get as good as it used to be. Not for a good long while at least.

So that’s said. Now the Harvard Story.

About six months ago I had coffee with another Wall Street Legend, serial Chief Risk Officer, Barry Schachter. He and I have known each other a good long time, and in my personal circles, he’s known for being a part of one of the most entertaining Senior staff meetings in Hedge Fund history, where he accused another senior staffer of having “Absolutely no idea what he was talking about” to the momentary shock and horror of all present. He was right of course, and demonstrated it. But the fallout from that was hysterical. ( insert obscure insider "Vega" reference here. )

Barry was head of risk when I arrived at Caxton, and when he left he went to run risk at Moore Capital, the place I had just come to Caxton from. He went on to run risk management at several other top tier firms, and no one is more respected or knowledgeable.

Barry was telling me some of the broad brush strokes of his latest venture, a smaller (10B>AUM<3B) fund. He would never reveal details about his work to a disinterested party which I was, but big broad brush strokes are fine, and we discussed it at that level.

He said the firm he’d be working with was Macro based – making bets on big sweeping economic inevitabilities – and that those bets would be both longer dated and ‘directional’. That’s a formula for relatively high volatility of returns, so it’s the kind of thing that hedge funds have avoided in the past. But he claimed, and I agreed, that it’s an area where there still may be a great deal of opportunity.

As an example, suppose you made a long term bet in this manner. If it’s doing well, you could theoretically be net up 13% in May, down 15% in June, and up 15% in July. So long as you are down 13% in August, this is a winning bet. The returns may be a very jagged line, but they’re a line with a strong upward trend, which means it’s inevitably profitable.

But it’s a winning bet that most hedge funds couldn’t make because of the structure of the industry where a 20% loss, even for a single day, means the end of operations. Well this new venture has solved that by establishing a different relationship with their investors that doesn’t necessarily set a trigger at a hard 20% draw down from peak.

The structure of the Hedge Fund world, with it’s fund of funds and layers of asset allocators who act as intermediaries between the cash investors and the funds, can’t really do this because it’s impossible to put a hard benchmark on the returns where you don't know for certain when the draw down is ‘expected vs. unexpected.” But the risks associated with those draws isn’t unknowable, and since there is a lot of data available for them, Barry felt that he could get a handle on it. If anyone can I’m sure it’s him.

This is an abandonment of the generalized “Market Neutral” low volatility high leverage approach, that has been squeezing Hedge Funds for the last decade. Disparities between the various markets have all been reduced to irrelevancy, and all hedge funds have felt that effect. That’s the real reason Hedge Fund returns have been low, sporadic and unrepeatable, even for the best managers. But there are so any people with a vested interest in that funding delivery structure, that no one wants to talk about it.

And what this has to do with Harvard is that they seem to be taking a broader, less explicitly “Market Neutral” approach as well. I don’t know the details of what’s being planned there beyond the WSJ article. But what they claim to be doing at least opens up the potential for a more directional, less market neutral approach. It also opens the door to more returns from private equity and real estate options, for which they are far more than adequately funded. And since I see that as the way of the future, I think it’s a good bet that this is part of their plan.

As always, the way a Hedge Fund works in principle is still about obtaining an “Information Advantage”. Barry’s new employers have cleverly figured that the structure of the Hedge Fund world has restricted most funds from taking the kind of bets they will be, and that gives them an explicit information advantage, even if it also gives them volatility. They have simply found a more structured way to manage that volatility, in a way that allows them to continue to operate.

I strongly suspect that Harvard is looking at things in this way as well. This opens up the possibility that they’ll move into markets which are inherently short liquidity like Real Estate and Private Equity, because it obscures (rather than eliminates) some of the volatility that comes with it.

That’s a structural change in funding as well, in a certain respect. But it requires a different set of expertise than the old model that is still being done as effectively as it can be, by guys like Paul Tudor Jones.

This says something important too about quantitative credibility. During the big expansion of the Hedge Fund world, it was often possible to get a gig managing money because your numbers looked good, even if you weren't one of those Exeter/Harvard/Oxbridge insiders. Well the opportunities in the easily quantifiable space are dwindling. So instead it's falling back on it's old method. Huge personal credibility works, as does "He knows the right people". But everything else is in for a very hard time.

Monday, February 27, 2017

I got up really early this morning, and it’s become my habit on these days to go back and correct at least a few of my gazillion spelling and punctuation errors in my last few posts.

But rereading and correcting my stuff today, got me thinking about things. What an utterly weird moment in American history this is.

The American left has spent the last decade struggling to get the boot of government onto the necks of people they disagree with. And when those people looked up at the boot and told them they didn’t like it, by peacefully electing someone who promised to remove it, they instantly accused them of being the kind of people who want to put the boot of government onto the necks of Americans.

When in all of human history has mass delusion and emotional projection, played such an important role in such a broad swath of human events?

And at exactly the same moment, the most socially ascendant political movement in the US (maybe in the entire western world) is being run by precisely no-one. When asked if they are the leaders, the very first thing it’s various shapers and architects say is “Absolutely not”. And then they continue to do what they do, all the while trying very hard to avoid any individual notoriety.

This same utterly leaderless yet still socially ascendant movement, is then accused by its opponents of being a prospective tyranny, when the only actual political changes that it’s ‘leaders’ are asking for, is to please close the door and leave us all alone.

For this their opponents accuse them of being Nazis and pedophiles, use violence against them, hold riots, set fires, break windows, and make it socially acceptable to ‘punch them in the face’. And the members of our “News” media take the oppositions seriously, while doing their very best to help demonize this leaderless, socially ascendant movement.

This is a movement that everyone disavows and that no one belongs to, that is still changing everything that American (and western) politics is all about. It’s actually run by a bunch of modest and soft spoken middle aged men and senior citizens, all in modest suburban homes, who spend their days staring into glowing screens and pecking at keyboards. But to their opponents, they are describes as polishing their jackboots, frog marching around the family room and gazing into the mirror at themselves while holding their combs under their nose like Charlie Chaplin.

The left hates them. The old right hates them. The press hates them. The Neo-cons hate them. The lobbyists, bureaucrats, and the ‘deep state’ all hate them. The government dependent clients of the left all hate them. And they are still the ones who are accused of promoting hate.

Honestly, it’s surreal. No one in Hollywood has this much imagination. And though Hollywood is where the movement’s greatest and most vocal critics come from, and they are all treated like the greatest thinkers of our age, they can’t even get their own award show right.

What a world. I feel lucky and blessed to be present to witness it. And I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Sunday, February 26, 2017

How do I find out about the alt-right? What does the alt-right want? What does the alt-right stand for? All valid questions. It’s time to start getting you some answers.

The Democrats have chosen a machine politician as their new party leader. And because they have, they’re probably going to lose their most devout base. These are that gang of listless and empty-headed zealots you see out there burning cars, screaming at police, and getting ridiculed in split screen by Tucker Carlson. Those people will either fracture the party and do something on their own, or they’ll increase their dosage, spend more time with their therapists, and forget to vote on election day. But this casts our situation on the political right in a new and interesting light for me.

We’ve have a fracturing of our own ongoing, but we chose the outsider as the leader.
This turned out to be the right move in the short term, but it could still go either way in the long term. And it’s time to start thinking about how we position ourselves to reunify the right and make ourselves stronger, instead of fracturing further and allowing the left a fresh inroad. We need a merger. And mergers are something I know a little about. But for that to happen, you need to start looking at what the alt-right really is.

Steve Bannon was cheered at CPAC but Richard spencer was shunned. Both of them have been accused of being a part of the dreaded Alt-Right. You probably don’t know all that much about what the alt-right is, but it’s a lot more than what you’ll ever read on twitter. And though you might have tried to find out about it, the problem there is that in order to avoid being discredited by the coastal media through Alinsky-ite tactics, the alt-right is an explicitly leaderless movement, so they think a lot of things.

You’ve seen these blowups already I’m sure. On the alt-right we see it as a game of media whack a mole. As soon as someone starts to make serious mainstream inroads, their reputation is trashed over some little incident that’s heavily spun and blown way out of proportion.

First is was Richard Spencer. (actually … the very first was probably John Derbyshire, or maybe even Peter Brimelow) Richard's NPI conference featured “roman salutes” from a few of it’s members. The media lambasted Richard for this even though he didn’t actually do the salute. And as a result, he’s still trying to cobble his public image back together. Richard has since been falsely branded ‘a Nazi’ and the left has declared open season on punching him.

Then more recently there was the explosion of Milo Yiannopolous, the outspoken gay provocateur and free speech advocate who’s scheduled speaking engagement at Berkeley caused a riot. Somewhere in his past he said some things which were very loosely interpreted by the mainstream press as being in favor of pedophilia, and in the process lost his CPAC speaking gig and a lucrative book deal.

Ask them and both of these men will tell you that they are very much NOT the leader’s of the alt-right. So how do you learn about a movement when the media makes it impossible for anyone to stand up as it’s leader without having their career destroyed for their trouble?

I’ve moved in these circles for a while now, so I’d like to clear it up for you a little. These are the people and places you should go to, if you want to understand the alt-right and what it “really” wants for America, instead of the frog marching caricature of it, offered up by the Mainstream press.

The first place you should go to read about the alt right is here.
Vox Day is very explicitly NOT the leader of the alt-right, but he’s one of the more influential voices. He was involved in the Gamergate movement, which was the very first push back against the social justice warriors, that actually succeeded on a large scale, and in that regard is something like the architect of the movement’s unstructured structure.
Vox’s rules
have been largely embraced by the bulk of the movement, and he’s extremely well spoken and well read. And as a devout Christian, he offers an excellent perspective on the explicitly pro-Christian version of the alt-right’s views.

The second place you should go is the
Amren website
and
Youtube channel,
to learn all you can about the godfather of the Alt-right, Jared Taylor. Jared has confronted the issues of concern to the alt-right for longer than anyone, and has done so with more grace and courage than most of us could muster on any topic. He continues to be the movement’s most prolific and well spoken advocate. Richard Spencer may have coined the term alt-right, but Jared Taylor invented the movement that adopted it. And I’ve met no one in the alt-right who wouldn’t defer to his encyclopedic knowledge and expertise.

He’s been at this a very long time so you might have heard of Jared over the years from the usual media suspects. But the real Jared is a very different man than what you’ve been told in the press, and he’s conveying a very different message. His policy ambitions are very modest, he explicitly rejects the use of violence of any kind (except in personal self-defense), and has no ambitions to empower the state to do anything to anyone, that they wouldn’t otherwise be willing to do on their own.

There are no boxcars in Jared’s future, and no camps and ovens. All he’s really advocating is a temporary (albeit longish term) cessation of immigration, and the freedom of all Americans to associate with whom they chose in the manner they chose to. For this the media has been lying about him for more than a decade, but even that he takes far better than almost anybody. If you’re only going to listen to one person to figure out what the alt-right is about in America, then Jared Taylor is the guy it should be.

Peter Brimelow runs the website Vdare.com
where he publishes a variety of thoughtful writers from the alt-right. Among his better known contributors are
Ann Coulter,
John Debyshire, and
Paul Kersey,
all of whom are worth your time. Ann you know of course, and you probably remember john Derbyshire when he was unceremoniously defenestrated from National Review, for failing to toe the party line on the overt anti-white racism in the mainstream press.

Then there is
Unz.com, home of the inimitable
quant blogger Steve Sailer.
Though his interests wander far afield from politics, you should read everything Steve writes. On the quant blogger side I’d also strongly recommend you have a look at
the audacious Epigone.
From them you can read about the data the Alt-right is looking at and make decisions about it for yourself. Unz also publishes the writing of
Robert Weissberg
who’s criticism on academia shouldn’t be missed.

There is also
Takimag.com
and the group blog
ace of spades HQ,
all of which can offer a very clear eyed and alt-right perspective on the events of the day. Often with very entertaining consequences. They may not be explicitly promoting the alt-right concept, but their writing is very alt-like and like myself, they probably represent a good sampling of what the alt-right audience for the rest of the people I’ve mentioned are thinking.

Then we move over to Youtube. Video is a great format, but where the alt-right is concerned, it’s also the format of choice for those who want to co-opt the movement and make it serve their personal goals. Milo and Richard Spencer both have a meaningful Youtube presence. So you have to take the video contributors with a grain of salt. And excluding Milo and Richard, there are a few other names you should know.

With that said,
RamZPaul
is in my opinion, the easiest of the alt-right contributors to watch. His videos are short, they stick to the point, and are often funny in a
‘midwestern nice’
sort of way. His channel is the alt-right reduced to pleasant, informative, and entertaining sound bites.

Stefan Molyneaux
runs a channel which is more like Alt-right talk radio. He’s extremely informative and has a wide cross section of interviews of the names above listed. If the alt-right ever launches it’s own media platforms to get away from the slander and misrepresentation of the mainstream press, Stefan will no doubt play a big part in it. He’s open minded, fair, and offers less artificial spin than anything you get from your cable box.

Red Ice radio
and Red Ice TV
are both widely available on Youtube. They are produced in Sweden so it isn’t an exclusively American venue, but it gives you a good eye toward the international component of the cultural changes that the western world is experiencing, and often covers explicitly American concerns. All of it very much anti-globalist.

Then there is
Gavin McInnes
, the Scottish born Canadian media personality who is tough to squeeze into a box. It’s so tough that he can’t be found in a single location on youtube, and though he has his own channel, you’re probably going to have more luck finding him on Rebel Media, a Canadian focused Alt-right channel.

Gavin was a Fox News Contributor and one of the founders of Vice media, but was ‘asked to depart’. I’ve met Gavin a few times and spoken to him at length. He was the NYU speaker responsible for giving us all Triggly-Prof, and I see him as a kind of merry troublemaker, more interested in having a good time laughing at the idiots of the left, than explicitly making a point. Still, he offers a very alt-right-ish perspective. Of everyone I’ve mentioned, I think he might be the one who is most likely to have a mainstream media blowup in his near future.

There are a wide variety of other alt-right contributors as well, all with their own sometimes large following. These include people like
Mike Cernovich,
Sargon of Akkad,
and a big long list of others that you can find by punching the words Alt-right into a Youtube search. They may feel differently about it, but I see these guys as riding the elephant rather than telling it where to go, much like myself. But by all means watch their videos and decide for yourself.

For me, the list above constitutes a pretty good look at the people who are generating the ideas that drive the movement rather than making the most of it for self promotion. They are the distributed brains of the alt-right, and aren’t going anywhere no matter what the media says about them.

The merge of the alt-right and classic conservatism is obviously going to take some time, and it won’t be seamless. It will involve a cross section of positions from both groups. But we’re at the point now where you shouldn’t be dismissing the alt-right out of hand. You should at least know what aspects of their philosophy and thinking you agree with and which you don’t. These are the guys you should be reading, if you want to figure that out.

The alt-right is not a twitter feed, or a cartoon frog. It’s not David Duke and some psycho sitting in a basement dreaming of camps and ovens. It’s serious men with a serious vision for the future of America. And it’s in all our interests to start giving it the serious look it deserves, even if the mainstream press won’t.

Saturday, February 25, 2017

I’ve often said that I don’t envy people very much, and that’s true as far as it goes. I’m never possessed of so much envy that it makes me angry at the person who is the object of my envy. But there are circumstances that others have found themselves in that I do envy, a little.

No one’s life is perfect, no one knows that better than me. But there is often a little bip here and a setting there that I have looked and said “Gee I wish I could do something like that.” But on those rare occasions where I went to the trouble of trying to get into an equivalent situation of my own, I got into the details of it and realized that they were probably paying costs for their circumstance that I never knew about. And that inevitably meant that for me, it probably wasn’t worth the trouble after all.

But, if that qualifies as envy then so be it. And I have a confession to make on precisely that score. Until just a few days ago I actively envied John Derbyshire.
(I know you're chuckling right now John, but I mean it.)

There are things about John’s modest life as a semi-retired scribbler that I find very appealing. He lives a life of the mind, which I suspect was always the area where he was most comfortable. He works on his own schedule, saying only things he believes. His soul is not for sale or even lease. He reads, and learns, and then opines on his learning, and people PAY him to do that. What an idyllic little existence that sounds like.

Sure, it’s a modest living, which is supplanted in John’s case by other income sources. And it’s been made slightly more modest these days, thanks to the honesty and realism of his positions and the contempt that most mainstream sources hold for such things. But it always struck me as a nice, intellectually and morally consistent way to add a few tiny shekels to the till by doing something he would almost certainly be doing for free anyway. It truly does seem enviable.

I could talk about a mild envy of his personal life too without violating any confidence. He lives in a pleasant home with his lovely and charming wife and dog. He has a son in whom he can and does take much pride, and a beautiful and clever (if somewhat ungrounded) daughter who may vex him occasionally, but who he otherwise utterly adores. His situation occasionally reminds me of that song from one of the very few musicals I can tolerate, 1776 – the song about the ‘cool cool considerate men’. All very enviable if you ask me.

So the other day I was thinking about John and his comparatively well ordered and more or less happy life. And that little devil with his talk of envy hopped up onto my shoulder and said:

“Hey you know… you’ve been writing this garbage blog for a decade. Now you and I know that it’s mostly witless charmless dreck, but your readership is rising again so maybe you’re still fooling someone out there. And I have to admit, after several thousands posts, one or two are not completely insufferable and insipid. Maybe you should try to dip a tiny toe into the water of actually getting paid to do it. You never know. Maybe if you’re a little more careful about things you can turn it into the kind of modest and compromise free supplement that your friend John has.”

Thus spoke the devil.

The relative modesty of this ambition made it seem more reasonable to me, and that’s when I made my big mistake. I foolishly listened to this voice, and began looking into blog monetization.

This blog is on blogger.com, which is a Google product. Google has a complementary product called adsense, and they make it very easy to apply for ad coverage on your blog. That sort of thing never leads to much money but I wasn’t looking for much and it was so easy, I thought I’d dip a toe. I applied, and within just a few hours I was unceremoniously rejected. Their reason: “Not enough original content.”

The ideas here may be crap. They may be the thoughtless ranting’s of a middle aged man upset about the way the world has changed around him. They may factually incorrect, and you may adamantly disagree with them. But they are all original. True I post other people’s videos and partially excerpt the work of others as hyperlinks, but I always cite sources, and virtually always include my own commentary on the original. So this specific reason for rejection puzzled me.

So I poked around a little in the adsense help forum and eventually got into a conversation with a very helpful ‘expert’, who explained what the real reason probably is. He/She (it was never made clear) explained that Adsense prefers blogs which are suited to the sensibilities of 8 year olds. Even the mention of sex, porn, or rape will disqualify you. Just the use of profanity and the single word F*** will result in accounts being turned off and monies being confiscated. And this, [s]he said, is probably what was really going on.

Oh. OK said I. That I can get. I’m not advocating for or posting examples of porn or rape, and in truth I’m not personally in favor of either. I’m in favor of sex as are most of us, but this is hardly penthouse forum. But the very helpful expert gave me the impression that just recognizing the existence of these topics and having an adult conversation about them is enough to disqualify you from adsense coverage.

To this I basically shrugged, thanked the ‘expert’ for explaining the rules, and resigned myself to this being a commercial channel that was closed to me. Fair enough. But then another expert chimed in with a much more disheartening criticism. This other ‘expert’ said that my blog was ‘a copyright infringement nightmare’.

I don’t know much about copyright law. Honestly, I don’t know anything really. I always assumed that if I just say that Joe Blow said X and linked the place where he said it, I was covered. I do occasionally rip off slightly bigger ideas from friends (John is one notable example) but I jokingly credit those as well. To my knowledge I have never openly stolen someone else’s idea or description of an idea, or un-accredit prose and claimed it was my own, which is what I thought copyrights are about.

But it wasn't the accusation of doing something I find ‘wrong’ that bothered me. What bothered me was that I’ve now come to believe that I really have been very amateurish about all this. And though I’m not sure, I think the world where you are paid to write things or say things, might be just as heavily regulated as the finance business. Or even if it isn’t regulated precisely, there are very complicated commercial rules that must be adhered to, which I never understood or even thought about.

There are lots of rules that the amateurs know in finance, and I’m afraid they have corollaries in publishing. Don’t insider trade. Don’t exceed your margins. Everyone knows these. But then there is a layer that only we insiders know. Don’t ‘front run’. Don’t ‘bang the close’. Those things don’t always have clear definitions (though we all know them when we see them) and I’m afraid that publishing world has rules similar to these that I’ve been breaking all along. If you don’t want to monetize your words that’s one thing, and the economic rules will let you slide. No one is going to come after me when there isn’t any money involved. But if you do want to, you have to know and adhere to all of them.

Which then also means that inevitably you have to make a choice between making money at something, and doing it to make a cultural or political point. Maybe it’s just a process issue, where if I link a youtube video instead of assuming the original commercial poster has already addressed the fair use issue, I’d be fine. But it does all make me wonder what precisely is on the minds of all the guys at National Review who are trying to both things. I’ve always given them the benefit of the doubt, but now I wonder if they aren’t on the inside of the media bubble surrounded by hostile lawyers always looking for a twitch from them. that kind of thing has got to make a difference in what you say.

Anyway the conclusion I’ve come to is that if I’m going to keep doing this, and it seems like I am, then I’m going to have to keep doing it for free, because according to the commercial rules of publishing, that’s probably exactly what it’s worth.

Friday, February 24, 2017

Researchers at North Carolina State have developed a metallic foam that has shown really impressive properties when it comes to the potential for new, ultra-light weight body armor.

Kevlar is nice, and pretty light, but to make a Kevlar vest really work you have to add steel plates to it, and that's heavy. Sometimes very heavy. But this stuff is a fraction of the weight of plate steel, and early testing makes it seem like it can stop bullets better.
In combat, that means more bullets, more water, or more of whatever it is you actually need to do the job done.

Sean Spicer called a 'gaggle' news briefing and hand picked the attendees, excluding CNN the NYTimes and Politico. Time magazine then refused to attend. Spice had a story about 'space' and it's technically correct. But the story is being talked up like it's the end of the Constitution.

The fake news issue, I've discussed before. It's the artificial negative framing of the stories which is at issue for Trump, and the media is blatantly and obvious guilty of this. "Asteroid to Strike Earth" is fine, "Women and Minorities hardest hit" is Fake. Pretty straight forward if you ask me.

CNN has already said that they're just "reporting facts the Whitehouse doesn't like". You would imagine that people who work with words for a living would generally understand them better, but apparently that isn't so. Still, this is where we are.

For entertainment purposes, I like the idea of Trump simply excluding those news agencies that clearly have no intention of treating him or his team fairly. But I honestly don't think this sort of tactic will help much. No one puts baby in the corner, as they say. And CNN doesn't need access to the President or his Press Secretary to make up their version of the news. And I don't imagine being treated like the bad kid is going to make them stop. I know it never did for me when I was a bad kid.

The pressure on the press should really be coming from us. The people who consume the news. But ironically, I know MORE people who watch CNN now in order to see their spin than I did before. And fairness is off the table for them. They're too invested in the idea of themselves as important.

Now obviously I'm no expert in how to handle an angry and openly hostile press, but I think it would be more effective to make them invisible. Let them attend the briefings but simply don't see them. They'll cry, stamp their feet, and hold their breath. But you know how kids are. And when they're hysterical, you just have to wait it out.

I go on and on about fallacious accusations of Racism and Sexism by the left and recently complained about Jonah Goldberg's and NAtional Review's water carrying for them. But if there is a topic among our soft spoken "allies" on the right that's even more out of bounds than those, it's Anti-Semistism. So why can't we talk about it?

The thinkers of the Alt-Right stay away from "The Jewish Question" more often than not, because those that tread this dangerous ground seem to mysteriously have their careers in media explode. But why can't we have a serious discussion about the role of Jews in American society? What's so special about them that their contributions as a group can't be discussed politely, and with an eye toward facts rather than emotion?

I've lived and worked surrounded by Jews all my life. I think I understand them as well as any non-Jew could. I've been proud to call a great many of them my friends, in several cases, my closest friends. They have been my most fair employers, my most trusted employees, and as a kid, in a story that means something to my family, I have been subjected to and delivered actual physical violence on their behalf. So why can't we have this conversation?

If you haven't guessed, I'd come down on the pro-Jew side, though not without recognizing the differences in Jewish culture and how it deviates from my own Anglo-Norman Irish traditions. But that doesn't change the fact that I find it very off putting that it isn't a suitable subject for reasoned discussion.

Seriously guys - I'd like to hear your views on this. I'm happy to talk about the contribution of my people. So why can't we talk about the Jews?

%%%%%%%SMALL UPDATE%%%%%%%%

If it wasn't perfectly clear, I think I know how an honest debate of the net net of civilized contribution will play out regarding "The Jews" and I'd like to hear it. How about a debate between David Duke and Dennis Prager? Mr. Prager like the kind of guy who has the self confidence to get on that stage.

Thursday, February 23, 2017

Just one more quick addition regarding this really great post which got pushed down the queue by someone else's really great post from another blog.

The role of Academia can't be understated here. I don't think most people appreciate just how serious the problem is there. Everyone gets that the internal problems in academia are huge - just look at Triggly-prof. But I don't think they truly appreciate how easily that kind of thinking flows down to the rest of the culture, particularly to the liberal media.

Liberals by nature, are followers not leaders. To be a dissident you need to have a measure of independence and courage. It's not an easy thing to look at a loud angry mob and say "you're all wrong" and I'm right. If you think about that a little you'll see that the 'leaders' that rise on the liberal side more often than not, are much more cynical than the liberal rank and file. They're opportunists who use liberal emotional reasoning to transform their own positions into whatever they have to, in order to gain power (not unlike a recent presidential candidate).

But the true believers, they're screaming for someone to follow. They crave leadership and only feel their most comfortable when they're part of a big crowd. That's why they believe in the rule of the mob. The mob is big and loud and angry, so the mob must be right.

In academia, it's the same thing only more so. If they were really experts in their fields they'd be out in the private sector, but they lack the risk tolerance for that. They prefer a world where being wrong has fewer consequences, like a nice cushy tenured professorship.

But they are still thought of by the liberal followers in the media as being 'the smart ones' none the less. If they want an expert to interview they've learned not to go to private sector executives. They're busy, have their own goals, and might be reluctant for commercial reasons to talk up a big political storm only to bring down the commercial wrath of whoever disagrees with them. But the private sector always (ALWAYS) knows more than academia, because if they do it wrong there is a big price to pay. That refines your thinking and makes you a better decision maker.

So the best minds the media has ready access to are all in academia. But if the right were to replace some portion of our present pool of academics with more serious thinkers who lean right, then that's at least part of who the Media would be talking to when they want new expertise. This is what Milton Friedman meant when he talked about the how “We are all a product of the thinking of the day”.

Change that, change the political cross section of academia, and I think the media will fall back in line very quickly.

We didn’t lose our moral moorings Jonah, we threw away the words we use to describe them when it became clear that those words had lost their meaning. When you say racist you mean one thing, and when liberals say it (and they say it a lot more than you so they are the ones who define it’s common meaning) it means something else entirely. For some reason, you simply refuse to see that your audience thinks you mean something completely different than I think you intend.

When a liberal calls something racist, they mean white or conservative, depending on whom they say it to. The charges of racism and sexism have continually morphed from an indictment of acts, to an indictment of intentions, to a steady state phenomenon possessed by all white people who refuse to prostrate themselves before the altar of liberalism. Even a liberal can be a racist now if he won’t ‘declare his privilege’ up front like the defendant in a perverse kangaroo court. And when you lob that accusation, particularly when you do so without specifics cited, you do nothing but accidentally carry their water for them.

This is very disturbing to me because I’m a great admirer of your writing and more broadly, your thinking. I believe you’re a highly intelligent man with a genuine wit – a potentially devastating combination in the culture war. But to me when you complain of racism, sexism, or anti-Semitism, I don’t get the message I think you mean to send. I get the one that liberals intend for those words – just like everyone else does.

Culture is upstream of politics right Jonah? Well you’re much further down stream than you think. You’re down here in the lowlands with the swamps and the bayous, and the animals down here can be nasty and poisonous. This is no clear mountain spring or babbling brook anymore. The left has pushed all of us into a political world of personal attack, personal invective, and personal assassination of character.

But you keep acting like you can take the high road and persuade through reason and rationality. That isn’t what persuades Americans anymore. We gave up on it when our Academics gave up thinking for feeling, and chose indoctrination over the free exchange of ideas. Milton Friedman, who has long been a hero of mine, in “Free to choose said: “We are all a product of the thinking of the day”. Well what are our academics thinking now Jonah? And when you look right and talk about 'racism' 'sexism' and 'anti-semitism', what exactly are you really saying?

I get the impression that you think you’re writing to some future audience instead of your readers for today. You’re complaining about ‘Racism” for the readers of 2060 who you imagine will look back on your work and praise your wisdom for keeping your wits about you while all around are losing theirs. They’ll see you as a beacon of sanity in an insane time. But to detach yourself from your audience that way… is to detach yourself from your audience. Instead of making America better now, you are leaving the field. And if you’re leaving the field, why should I bother reading you?

And forgive me Jonah, but I don’t think the future you imagine is ever going to happen unless we engage in the arguments of today. The academic world needs to be changed. And it isn’t going to change so long as the self appointed paragons of conservative thinking refuse to change it because they’re worried about their audience of the future. In that regard and as offensive as you find him, Milo got it right and you are getting it very, very wrong.

With regard to anti-Semitism, I’m not anti-Semitic. I have thousands of posts here, millions of words, and I defy you or anyone else to find something I’ve said that meets that criteria, that wasn’t an extremely obvious joke. Humor in my mind can be offensive, but it has to be funny enough to be clear otherwise you can give genuine offense and do more damage than you intend. A great number of the alt-right 4channers and Milo himself, may not be very funny, and I’m not thrilled about that personally. But the serious thinkers of the alt-right have no antipathy for the Jews. And beyond some online nastiness, there is no “there”, there in the alt-right.

So please – recognize that the world of today is different than you would prefer. Recognize that the common meaning of the words you use has changed. Recognize that the rules of cultural engagement have been changed by the left. And if you can’t accept and embrace that fact, at least stop beating us on the head for it.

There is something to be said for positive cultural outcomes, even if you don’t like the means by which they’re made. Call it cultural sausage making. You’re going to eat the sausage if you live in this culture, so if you won’t help stir, then at least get out of the kitchen and leave the hard work to others.

I’m convinced that the changes the alt-right seeks will lead to a better, safer, more stable and less confrontational world for everyone, than the one we live in now. And by everyone I mean black, white, red, brown, Jew, Gentile, and Muslim. But for right now, today, I’m convinced that emotional shock, emotional attack, and emotional appeal is the only thing that can push back on modern leftism with any effectiveness. They’ve stopped listening to reason, so giving them more of it only feeds the alligator.

And look, I know I'm an amateur. I know I don't write as well as you professionals and that you can slice and dice this to take me apart if you want to. But I also know enough about communication to know when my broader message is getting across and when it isn't. And I think it would be a wonderful thing if you NR folks would begin to at least try to do the same.

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

I don't like to put something else up immediately after I wrote something I like, and I liked that last post.
I really don't like to put something else up that was written by someone else, immediately after I wrote something I like.

But fair is fair, talent is talent and I can recognize it even if I can't produce it. So I know that this is too good to pass up. It's Ace's takedown of Ben Shapiro and the old right bastions he represents:

I don't want to excerpt anymore. Read the whole thing at the link. You'll thank me.

I confess, I read Ben's piece in NR this morning, but I didn't think much of it. My response to Ben's secret surprise ending of the invitee being David Duke was "I don't know, I'd kinda like to hear David Duke's justifications for his positions." but that's me. I'm crazy that way.

As a broad concept though, I couldn't agree more with Ace's splendidly written take on it (damn him). I believe the right answer to bad speech is good speech, not no speech. I don't think any idea should be off the table as 'too outrageous' and I'm happy to show up to berate David Duke, or anyone else on the merits. And if you think that the only thing protecting your ideas is denying anyone else the right to disagree with you, it telegraphs to me that your ideas must really be very poorly supported. This is the state of modern liberalism, in my opinion.

But Ace's piece is so well put that I really do think it's a don't miss, even if it means me bumping my own writing further down the queue. (Again... Damn him.)

So I listened to Richard Spencer’s reaction to the Milo blowup. I’m not going to link it because I don’t think it shows Richard or Milo in the best light. But it did fill me with a desire to talk about the Alt-Movement and the Alt-Right vs. Alt-White vs Alt-Light etc.

I personally don’t understand the instinct for professing a movement that demands purity from all its spokesmen. And the main reason I don’t think it makes sense is that those pure positions represent a comparatively extreme change which is never going to happen. Will white America rise from their beds tomorrow and realize that we need to expunge all non-white’s from civil society? No. Whether you think it’s a good or a bad idea, you should be aware that it isn’t achievable today because no one has made a persuasive case for it.

I personally think there is an excellent argument to be made for a more homogenous society, and I’ve heard people make it in part and in whole for a decade. I found them very persuasive, and I think others would as well. But so far in American culture, no one is making the case for it on the large scale. And insisting on it today as a prerequisite for legitimacy of opinion in a movement seems like a silly idea. It results in fracturing, and that helps no one.

If the Alt-right is going to play a larger role in American politics, and I hope it will, it needs to do so incrementally. We should be expressing broad truths, well supported by facts, data, and history - the kinds of things that your average person on the street will find easy to accept. For example, first and foremost, we need the state to enforce the laws for free expression of opinion. The concept of Hate Speech needs to be shown the door.

And whether you hate Milo, or gays, or whatever you think he represents, he was making enormous strides on that score. Even if you disagree with him about everything else, you’ve got to give that to the guy. He was charging into the most repressive portion of American culture, using his membership as a minority as a cover, and saying all the things you would want anyone interested in free exchange of ideas to say. And I believe that academia is the key to the whole thing. If you crack the nut of academia, then you will slowly crack the nut of the media.

I know many in the alt-Right sphere disagree with this view. They view the media as a Jewish dominated industry firmly dedicated to liberalism and White genocide. Well I disagree. I think if you are putting forward ideas that are modest, reasonable and supported by data, and the academic community is embracing them even in part, then an equivalent portion of the media will follow as well.

The Reagan revolution is much talked about on the right, but from my perspective it didn’t belong to him. It really belonged to an impish little Econ professor from Chicago who made an incredibly persuasive case for economic liberty and the innate power of freedom of choice.

When Milton Friedman persuaded Academia, his ideas became fashionable. And that is what caused the media to begin to allow discussion of free markets as real solutions to our economic problems. Convince Academics and you take the high ground away from everyone in the media who want’s to seem smarter than they really are, which I think is everybody.

Since we’re talking about ideas, the next broad idea in the Alt-Queue should probably be the right to absolutely free association.

Private citizens should have the right to assemble and exclude from that assembly, absolutely anyone that they desire for the purpose of political advocacy. If they want to exclude others by race, sex, sexual preference, or anything else, the state should ensure that they can.

This isn’t so controversial a concept that it will set off the alarms of the big political center of the US. Black advocacy, Latin advocacy, Gay advocacy, Muslim advocacy, Woman advocacy, Chinese advocacy, even left handed advocacy are all allowed. Why shouldn’t white advocacy or for that matter white heterosexual male advocacy be allowed as well?

And if we can freely assemble in a private setting, why can’t we then to begin to do the same in public? It is a right after all, it’s mentioned in the much hallowed first amendment. It won’t be completely politics free to see a change like that, but it’s more likely once private association is recognized. And by then the alt-right will have a much larger base listening, and open to persuasion. And again, make the case in academia, and you will see it accepted for discussion at least, in the media.

The government shouldn’t be allowed to do this of course, and I think you can argue that monopolies shouldn’t be allowed to either. But for the vast majority of cases we should allow private citizens to discriminate as they see fit.

With regard to the media, right now the alt-right is at an obvious disadvantage. Vox is recommending building our own mediums, and I support that take. But I think to say that’s the end of it gives the media and the public in general too much credit with regard to their principles. I think they aren’t devoted to liberalism as much as they’re devoted to keeping their high status and having what are seen as ‘good ideas’ so that they can remain popular. But if it takes a different set of ideas to continue to seem like the smart people, then I believe many will be happy to change.

I see these positions as completely achievable under our current political system. And as the media members who are willing to entertain alt-ideas begins to grow, either by changing the ideas that the current media adhere to or founding their replacement, I think we’ll find persuasive people who are willing to make the case for them. But today, focus on the most extreme ideas simply annoys the broader public and makes the media think you’re a loon.

But I think that can and will, change. If we can all say what we think then we can make the case for those ideas. And if they have support in the form of historical perspective, or carefully gathered data, then I believe people will be open to them. I’ve never met a man who couldn’t be taught to accept the truth. Some have to be more worn down than others, but the truth is awfully powerful.

From another alt-perspective, this is really about credibility. If you’re a guy who spends his time in the comments sections calling everyone to the left of Mike Cernovich a cuck, I think it takes something away from you as a messenger. You may be right, and the trolling is great as a means of taking the weapon from the hands of the most extreme social justice warriors by imposing a cost on their ideas. But for the broader public, it won’t matter because no one will listen to you. And getting people to treat your ideas as a serious thing is very useful in the center. A movement can’t be all about rage, even if a small part of it has to be.

My goal here is to try to make the case for persuasion from the center rather from the ends. I think many of the alt-right’s thinkers are excellent at making that case and though I can’t say he was a deep thinker, Milo was reaching the center. Subjecting people like him to a purity test, seems to me to be a very counter productive thing.

I was reading this piece on the political problems of California secession. Like many people in America with no few close ties to California, I'd live to be spared the condescension of the Hollywood idiots and dream for a day when they have to live by the rules they would have us set for everyone. But there are issues that the piece glosses over too lightly.

Money is like Oxygen or water. It doesn't matter at all until you don't have any. And I think that would happen quickly even if California were allowed to peacefully secede. Right now, the state of California has a credit rating of AA- from Fitch, and Aa3 from Moody's. Still investment grade but hardly the top of the heap. But that isn't a rating based on California the country, it's for California the state. The Federal government has been backstopping the states for decades when it comes to cost overruns and budget woes. The minute that backstop disappeared, the ratings agencies would have no choice but to downgrade the credit rating, radically increasing the new 'Republic's cost of borrowing'.

The liberals that dominate Californian politics love borrowing. They live for it. And they would have to do considerably more of it if the Federal backstop that is implied for all 50 American states is taken away by secession. There are other issues too.

Right now, the Army and Navy protecting the 900 mile long California coastline and it's shorter border to Mexico are all employees of the US Federal Government. The equipment they use is Federal Government property, and the Defense Secretary would be unlikely to allow the new California Republic to keep all that gear free of charge. I can imagine the secession advocates arguing that California's strategic position would require the US Navy to continue to protect it free of charge to ensure US interests, and that's probably true. But a US Army speaks to US interests, not necessarily the interest of a group that saw such big differences with our direction that they asked for a divorce.

Then there is the California National Guard. Californians love a good riot, and the National Guard plays an important role in keeping the peace there. And while they may be under the command of the Governor, they are funded by the departments of the Army and Airforce. Those are the "US" Department of the Army and Air-Force. The State will have to find a way to pay for that itself. Oh, and it will have to buy all it's own bullets, guns, and planes.

The people arguing for California secession are political idealists. They aren't thinking about the nuts and bolts of administering a National Government. If they gave it even a cursory glance, it would become clear immediately that this is a very expensive path relative to their current road.

And here's a thing that is secondary to those issues. The reason the US government has maintained it's AAA rating in spite of its financial profligacy is that army. When the Government says "you will be paid" it's a difficult point to scoff at because of the immense military might of the US. When California starts printing it's own money, absent an Army of their own, and with a deeply scaled back National Guard, their financial indiscretions will all be reflected in the value of their currency. I'm confident the value of that currency would instantly collapse, but the need for money will not.

Sacramento will then be forced to borrow and print even more money. And the only thing that will prevent it becoming another Zimbabwe will be to abandon the California Philosophy of rewarding unproductivity and punishing the productive. Again, this would be fun to watch, especially if California residence were required to transfer their savings and assets in US banks to the local currency. But that would mean that all the Hollywood imbeciles who have ruined California would instantly emigrate to the US, and we'd have to learn to put up with them all over again.

Much as I'd like to see them go, we won't be rid of the land of fruits and nuts anytime soon.

Antifa members live in an alternate universe where virtually any difference in outcomes between people is seen as racist, fascist, and an example of patriarchal repression of women and gays. But their universe has just collided with the real world.
CNN:

In prison, Antifa protesters will get to experience first hand a system designed to treat everyone equally in spite of their behavior. The food is the same, the accommodations are the same, the clothing is the same, and everything is free.

Yes, there will be a few compromises like a heavily armed force ensuring that freedom of movement is curtailed, the occasional gang rape in the showers, and being under constant threat of violence from the other inmates who are more willing to 'go the extra mile' for their views and impose their will "by any means necessary". But if you want perfect equality, you have to break a few eggs, and I'm sure the Antifa kids will welcome these small concessions, in exchange for all the equality on offer.

Have fun kids, and remember, you're just a few steps closer to that perfect world of equality that you've all been dreaming of. To paraphrase a quote often attributed to Queen Victoria, "Just close your eyes, and think of America."

If you watch this video of Milo's Press conference and read my assessment below, written before the press conference, you see I got his position exactly right. His was a statement about his own life, and it was a gross misrepresentation of his views, and his experience, to portray him as a pedophile. So what does that mean?

Look, this is a media savvy guy. He's not finished yet. So now we get to see how hard someone who is tough, ambitious and media ready can react when one of these witch hunts comes after him.

I'm pleased to hear this statement by Milo. And I'm still a supporter of his (in a perfectly appropriate non-gay way).

This guy is perfect in his cluelessness. Tucker goes comparatively easy on him, which I guess he should. It's no fun to see the stupid get beaten up on.

But that doesn't mean this guy isn't the perfect face of American Leftism. He has no agenda, no ideas, no specific complaints, and no serious things to say. All he has is a vague uneasiness, and the general idea that Trump isn't a President he would want, and a glee at being able to be a part of a movement for 'positive things', even if he has absolutely no idea what those positive things are. It could be a charity walk, or he could be punching Nazi's, he doesn't know and doesn't care. It's activism for activism's sake.

That's the thing about the left now from Anti-Fa to Chuck Schumer. It isn't about anything at all, but to them it's really about everything altogether, which isn't anything at all.

When I was 20 years old, I went fishing with a friend of mine. His dad kept a small condo at the beach with a slip for a small boat. While we were carrying our gear from car to boat, I couldn’t help notice the two VERY attractive girls in the boat slip next to us doing the same.

One girl in particular, who was already bopping about in a bikini in the morning sunshine, was truly breathtaking. Smooth skin, genuine smile, great big beautiful blue eyes, great tan, nubile curves, and small bikini that hid virtually nothing from view. In my memory I sometimes confuse her with the opening credits of “Charlie’s Angels” where Cheryl Ladd’s appearance in a bikini greatly resembled this girl. I've put Ms. Ladd's picture up above and the resemblance still matches my memory. Tell me honestly that if you met that girl, you wouldn't find her appealing. This girl was a 10 – as close to flawless as I had ever seen. Yes, they do exist.

My friend said hi to them as we approached, and dropped our gear into the boat. I did the same and was introduced for my trouble, and a few seconds of polite small talk followed. As we went back for the cooler of beer and food, I naturally asked my friend “Holy $41T who the hell is that?!” “That’s my neighbor’s cousin” he said “but don’t get any ideas. She just turned 15 last week.”

There is no one who would have ever bet that this girl was so young. Before he told me different I had figured she was my age. But being the kind of guy who was deeply influenced by society’s expectations, I put all illicit thoughts of her out of my mind – no easy trick for my 20 year old self. That girl looked every bit a woman, not a too young girl in her early teens. And no one, and I mean NO ONE would ever have accused me of pedophilia because I thought this girl was attractive. I’m completely certain that everyone who looked at her did the same.

This sort of thing happens. I’m sure you’ve all been there, and the vast majority of you probably did exactly what I did. There may have been a few inappropriate thoughts, but there were certainly no inappropriate acts. And life went on for all concerned without trauma. There is no reason to get all up in arms about it or to accuse me of anything. All I ever did was say hi, and cast an appreciative look her way. Besides, half the girls in NYC modeling agencies are underage, and I’m sure there are a large number of them who are much more actively lusted after by men who are too old for them, than I ever did with this girl.

So yes, this is really about Milo and his alleged ‘support of Pedophilia’.

If there is a single group of people who really are ‘marginalized’ like the social justice warriors all say, it’s got to be pedophiles. I’ll say up front, the idea is abhorrent to me, so we can put that behind us. But just suppose for a minute that we all possess the maturity to step back from the moral question and actually look at what this issue is about.

Pedophiles are all on a list. A carefully maintained and watched, government list. It’s illegal for them to live near schools, or to be in any profession where they are exposed to children in any way. Getting a job at all is probably tough because the list that they’re on is public, and there are even apps which will tell you precisely where they live. I can go online right now and find out where the nearest Pedophile is and what his name and crime were. I might even be able to see a photo of him. That’s got to be a very difficult way to live.

But apart from all that, there is quite literally no one on their side, (including me). You could beat one in the street if [his] pedophilia were public enough, and the police, the courts, the seminarians, and even the social justice schoolmarms who want to butt into everything, will all look the other way. There is no issue the west is more unified on than our disgust with pedophiles.

However, since the potential costs of sexual activity in the gay community are so low, and since they also tend not to be quite as put off by society’s expectations as my 20 year old self was, they’re really the only group of people in America who are not as completely put off by the idea of pedophilia in their personal lives, even if they avoid the political hot potato in public.

Milo, in discussing his own personal sexual past, talked through the loss of his own virginity in which he was a teenage ‘gay’ boy with an older man. And in an effort to deny his victimhood, he claimed that there are positives to all this, and that it ‘wasn’t the end of the world’ for him.

Milo, it seemed to me, was speaking frankly and honestly as is his way. He tends to spend a great deal more time talking about how things really are, or at the very least how he really sees them, than how we would all prefer them to be. And the fact that he was something less than destroyed by his teenage experience with an older man, seems to have attracted all the sharks of the ‘old right’.

I watched the video in question, and I thought Milo was talking about the homosexual equivalent of me being accidentally attracted to that 15 year old girl. I could be wrong, but I think he was saying that finding a physically mature human attractive doesn’t in and of itself make anyone a pedophile or even provide justification for accusing them of pedophilic tendencies.

After all, I wasn’t attracted to that girl because she was barely 15. I was attracted to her because I couldn’t tell that she was barely 15. And when I learned the truth, my physical attraction didn’t diminish in any way. She looked just as good after I learned her age as she was before I had learned it. The only difference was that I made the civilized decision to never to act on my attraction because I thought it would be inappropriate. But there is another angle to Milo's story.

I’m a heterosexual – very much so. And if some older woman had decided to have sex with me at age 13, looking back on it from here I think it would have been very traumatic experience, and would have probably left a mark. It might have changed how I see myself and how I see others in very important ways. 'Too young' sex usually does. And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the ways it might have changed me could have been correctly called ‘damaging’.

But I think after 13 year old Tom had recovered from utter shock of the idea, he would have been over the moon with it. At age 13 I fantasized about older women continuously, as many 13 year old boys do. And had it happened, I don’t think I’d have been inclined to call myself a ‘victim’ over it either – even if it’s what I objectively was. We can go ahead and pretend that this would be a simple moral issue, and objectively I think it is. But had it happened that way, I can't say for certain that the morality of it would be as perfectly clear to me in my own case. That ambiguity might even be the way I could have correctly been called 'damaged', but I don't think anyone would crucify me for that.

Also, this admission of mine - that 13 year old Tom would have liked the idea of sex with an older women even if middle aged Tom thinks it would have been a very bad idea - does not mean that I’m in favor of older women having sex with 13 year old boys, I’m not. 13 year old Tom DEFINITELY was in favor of it, but as a 13 year old, you can’t blame me if I had some immature and irresponsible ideas about things. That’s what 13 year olds are and why we don’t generally let them make life changing decisions on their own if we can avoid it. Fortunately I never had any event like that to worry about.

Unfortunately, Milo wasn’t so lucky. And looking back from that maybe bent, maybe seriously damaged view of things, he’s decided that he doesn’t wants to proclaim himself a victim, and wants to own the whole thing. That doesn't seem so terribly monstrous to me. Whatever the actual circumstances, and I'm sure we're going to learn them all, that someone wants to find positives in even the potentially worst experiences of their own life, is not something I'm ever going to call them a monster for. It doesn't matter to me how inelegantly he expresses it, or how unified we all are on how horrible it may have been.

Then there is the politics of this. Some shady neocon group cobbles together some video that makes Milo sound like he might maybe possibly be endorsing some aspects of pedophilia, an opinion he has unambiguously denied. Thus begins our ‘two minutes of hate’. I don’t know how he really feels about it and I don’t think the video clears it up for me at all. But I do know that this whole “he said something once that I can interpret anyway I like to brand him a monster” thing has got to stop.

I suspect that before the dust settles, all will be known. Milo is not one to shy away from a fight. And since I find him to be truthful more often than not, I’m going to wait until the facts are in before I call him anything at all other than what he claims he is. The ‘two minutes of hate’ folks on the other hand, I trust not at all. And I don’t’ see any reason to give them the benefit of the doubt today, just because they’ve found a brush to tar Milo with, that virtually everyone finds totally reprehensible.

Sunday, February 19, 2017

Losing your high status must be a terrible thing. I wouldn’t know myself. Yes, I was a Portfolio Manager at several very elite hedge funds. But most people outside that industry think one hedge fund is the same as the next, and that they’re all lying, cheating, thieves anyway. Which means that the minute I walked out the office door, my status would immediately fall to zero. It’s an ego drug I never got the chance to get used to.

After money, status is the thing all men want, and all women want their man to have. Women, particularly young women, may even prefer it to money. Which is why the press is so doggedly clinging to their progressive narrative, in spite of it already laying in near ruins at their feet.

To them, the narrative makes them important. It elevates their individual opinion and their individual view. With it, instead of simply reporting on the actions and decisions of others, they become a part of the story. They are integral to it. They are framing it and explaining it. It’s their individual understanding of the news that becomes in some sense, the most important part. Without it, they’re just scribblers and file clerks – the record keepers of public life. And that means the end to their lofty status as the great explainers.

Credibility is an input to this media formula. With it, their opinions are powerful and they can influence people easily. Without it they can flail at people who don’t share their view, but never do any real damage to the opposing opinions. But credibility is a consumable resource. And the more they rely on it to persuade others, the less of it they retain.

But that was a different time. These days there are too many new sources of information, and too many outsiders offering perspective. It’s become too easy to disprove the most obvious lies, so lies (or if you prefer…errors) like Cronkite’s don’t survive well. And the harder the traditional leftist media tries to sell its view and it’s framing of the debate, the more quickly they burn their credibility.

If the American news media wants to regain its credibility all it has to do is frame the stories they cover as being consistent with what most Americans can see for themselves, and what they inevitably will online. If what they tell us turns out to be consistent with history, with common sense, and our own lying eyes, their credibility would be instantly buoyed. Tucker Carlson and Milo are both doing that very thing, and both have begun reaping the benefits of it. But the liberal narrative is not a source of information like that.

This forces a choice on the media, which it hasn’t yet been willing to accept. They can either frame the news in a way that raises their credibility, or in a way that raises their status, but not both. So far, they are sticking with status. But they can see it dribbling away, even if they don’t see precisely why.

Chuck Todd is aware of the problem, or at least is feeling it’s effect. In a tweet particularly lacking in self reflection (even for an American journalist) he said:

He doesn’t realize that it’s the press delegitimizing itself. And leaning on his own specific view of what is and isn’t “unAmerican”, isn’t going to help the situation. This is a journalist trying to leverage his status to restore his credibility, without realizing that the formula only works the other way around. You can leverage credibility to restore status, but not status to restore credibility.

There is a broader psychological and philosophical war going on in America that goes way past the sparring between the press and our chief executive. And ever time the American public see’s online video of “peaceful protesters” throwing rocks and burning cars, the media loses a little more credibility. Every time they tell us that biological facts are social constructs, or words and punches do the same damage, the media loses a little more credibility. Their status will only follow.

I think the whole thing is a kind of slow motion suicide. It’s the media consuming the addictive drug of high status, and in the process burning their own credibility to the ground.

Saturday, February 18, 2017

When you drain a swamp, there are some regions of this country where the thing you’ll end up with, is an unknown number of pissed off and confused snakes and a few mildly annoyed gators. Leave them alone for long enough and the gators will solve their newly acquired problem themselves. They’ll saunter off through the trees to find some other little puddle or estuary to settle in. They’ve been at this for 200 million years, and are well accustomed to keeping a comparatively low profile. The snakes though, you’re going to have to do something about them.

The smart thing to do is to ‘remove’ them. If you think the word ‘remove’ is a being used as a euphemism in this case, then you’re paying close attention. Ever since the Endangered Species Act empowered the EPA to prevent any commerce it damned well pleases, private citizens who are trying to build in areas where there is significant animal life, have gotten in the habit of getting a couple of good ole boys to quietly skulk out to their build sites in the middle of the night with a few gallons of gasoline. The gasoline get’s dumped down into holes and nests around the site to ‘remove’ the creatures within.

A few weeks later, the EPA can then come by and do their inspections, and rather than finding spotted owls and mud bellied newts or whatever, they find only abandoned nests, burrows and other signs of previous but no longer present, animal activity. Let the “winning” commence.

As a longtime hunter, I’m a great fan of nature and believe it should be protected. I’m not one of those guys who thinks guys of Mark Zuckerberg’ish influence should be allowed to build their houses around ‘ole faithful, using it’s steam to power their guest bedroom sauna, thus denying the rest of us access. But the EPA is clearly out of control, and I think it’s safe to assume the rest of Washington is probably the same way.

So in the grand scheme, I’m unconcerned with all the pushback from the intelligence services this week. These guys are not James Bond, and Q in the same way that not all our soldiers are members of Seal Team 6. They are mid-level government bureaucrats, guilty of mid-range sins and mid-range corruptions. I’m quite certain that whatever else they may be worried about, their job security and pensions are on the list someplace. And I’m willing to bet my hat that they are no smarter on average, than everyone else at a similar level. So I think we should all try to remember the differences between Hollywood’s story of us, and the us of real life.

The “Deep State” conjures a very dark and conspiratorial image that I think probably gives them too much credit. Yes I’m sure they have an agenda, and yes I think it’s clear that they deeply oppose the Trump administration’s priorities. But it’s probably for the same reasons that everyone else on the left is so perturbed about Trump. And no one who is that detached from reality can be that much of an objective threat in the long term. Trump just needs the New York equivalent of some good ole’ boys to get out there with some gasoline and convince the most seriously affected of their number to go away. Give him a little time.

My Saturday mornings for the last few years, have settled into a pleasant kind of rhythm. I read the late Friday night news dumps on Drudge, Freerepublic, and the associated links, then immediately afterward I listen to Radio Derb.

The news dump, slipped into the middle sections of the nation’s dailies by convenient timing, never fails to annoy me. But the clarity and rationality of Radio Derb reminds me that I’m not actually one of the patients in this insane asylum. This purges my intellectual space, and prepares my psyche for the day.

Then comes my morning workout followed by a shower, and cooking breakfast for my daughter etc. The minor and sometimes pleasant chores of modern life, in which I’m careful to always, take some small joy.

This week though I noticed a gap in my routine. There was no late Friday night news dump of inconvenient facts from the Trump administration. There was no need because the Trump news, in some respects, is always inconvenient for the people reporting it. When this occurred to me, I was immediately reminded of my favorite all time politician and the story I always tell of him.

Former Governor of Louisiana Ed Edwards, was the aforementioned politician, and the story has to do with his treatment of the press. At one point he was being investigated for corruption, as in my opinion all politicians inevitably should be, and one of the reporters asked “Ed, aren’t you afraid they’re gonna find the skeletons in your closet?” His paraphrased response, tinged with his Louisiana accent was a classic line. “Son” he said to the reporter, “I ain’t got no skeletons in my closet. They all out there runnin around of the front lawn”.

Now Ed was a crook, there is no doubt. And he was eventually convicted of something or other, and spent several years in a Federal Prison in Texas. But we are all fallen creatures, so I’m reluctant to judge. Birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim and politicians gotta lie and cheat. And we have institutions with checks and balances designed to throw the worst of them in jail afterward.

It’s the nature of the beast, that’s my thinking. But if they manage to do it with the style of Ed Edwards, then I’m prepared to look beyond an indigent brother in law or two with a mid range no-show government job. That’s not perfect, but neither is life, and neither am I. It’s fine to strive for perfection in all things, but it would be wrong of me to expect anyone else to reach it, anymore than I do of myself.

And that’s the thing about Trump. His press conference from this past week, which I watched in real time, was… indescribable. Style?! It’s too small a word. There must be some big German word, which means “man who obviously has nothing whatsoever to hide”. I’m sure you’ve heard about it. It had all the features that thrill his fans and both thrill and horrify his detractors. But there is more than that.

He sounded absolutely nothing like any politician - ever. He even mentioned this himself in the press conference. This is really the thing that most mortifies the left, though in their solipsistic way, they probably don’t realize it. To them, their politicians are seen as the high priests of their much beloved church, and Trump is deviating from the traditional liturgy in its entirety. They are more aghast at this than any of his actual policies, which so far anyway, don’t actually deviate from previous administrations in any dramatic way, unless you count actually enforcing the law.

But his plain spoken and confrontational style so offends them that they are filled to the brim with an inexplicable rage. Ask one, and after you get past any sublimation about policy differences you’ll see that very thing. “I don’t know what annoys me about him, he just does!” they’ll say, choking back their bile in a haze of sputtering and eye rolling.

Well screw them, I absolutely loved it. Their religion is stupid, their faith a farce and Trump’s treatment of their liturgy was poetic in its disruption. Whatever else he may be, he is no politician. And for that I think America should be deeply thankful. We’ve had enough of that sort of thing, and need to get back to objectivity and basics.

Although he never actually came right out and said it in so many words, what he clearly meant was that he takes great exception to the current ‘framing’ of the news. It’s that old joke about “Earth to end on Tuesday, women and minorities hardest hit.” He’s not complaining about the news of the impending asteroid, he’s complaining about the bit about “hardest hit”. That’s the “Fake News” bit. And since it’s all we’ve seen from the MSM, and all we’re likely to see, I expect him to keep right on complaining about it. He might not be able to reform them. But if anyone can, I believe it’s him.

I had my reservations about Trump early on. But after this past press conference, I am purged of all doubt. It was perfect, right down to it’s timing. The man is precisely the medication our ailing country needs. Let the left rend their garments and gnash their teeth. The more the better.

Thursday, February 16, 2017

Personally I think most boycotts are stupid, even the ones which support causes I like. The Target Boycott for instance. That was a stupid policy for the Target Chief to put in place, and I disagree with it. I'll spend my money elsewhere. but I won't go out of my way to get others to do so.

The News Media is different though. I read Slate pretty religiously just for the rubbernecking. It's hard not to read how they distort the actual events, especially on topics where I consider myself adequately knowledgeable. And where Slate is concerned I kinda get it - they are writing opinion not 'news' and don't claim to be (or if they do, they don't claim it credibly.)

But people like the New York Times and Washington Fishrap aren't doing their jobs. They've become blatant open propagandists. One could argue they always were, but I can't believe they aren't being a little more shameless about it. And from now on, I'm not giving them any of my clicks.

I'm not gonna tell you guys what to do, especially those of you who need that news to do your jobs. But if you can manage it, I'd strongly suggest you stay away from them when you can. If they can listen to the Presidential News Conference that I just did, and not see the division and reform their view just a little, then we owe it to them to stay away, in order to let them know how they're letting us all down.

He's still speaking but I have to say, I absolutely fecking Love this guy. No quarter for the press! None. He's practically up there saying "Suck my White Privilege New York Times!!!"

I don't hate many people, but I utterly despise the way the media is behaving. And I can't think of anything better than having a President with the nerve to call them out, time and time and time again from the Presidential podium.

If anyone knows where the NYTimes guys drink, please let me know so I can go scream in their faces and call them losers too.

God Bless you Donald Trump.

%%%%%%%%%%%UPDATE%%%%%%%%%%%

Trump is taking questions now. The thing about him is that he speaks like a man who has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to hide.

There is usual scatter shot of noise today out of the media. But I’d like to take a step back a bit and look at it from altitude. I find that sometimes helps to keep things in perspective.

Strategically speaking, the left is very, very, very, angry. When I say the left, I mean the media, the Democrat party (such as it is), the professional civil service, academia, the ‘clients’ who survive as wards of the overgenerous state, and the collection of odd ball activists and ‘awareness raising’ lay-abouts that the left uses to stand in for grassroots support. The only label that would be in any real dispute there is maybe the last one, and I don’t think that is a mischaracterization because as soon as Obama stopped running for reelection the left starting losing elections, like losing elections was their goal.

At the moment they have lost control of the Presidency, the Senate, the House, most State Governorships, nearly 2/3 of the State houses, and god only knows how many local elections, town councils, and school boards. If each person in the street with a ‘Not My President’ sign in one hand and a can of mace in other really represented 100 (or even 10) more people at home, we’d be in the early stage of the Hillary Clinton Presidency, instead of one State house away from a ‘Republican Only’ Constitutional Convention.

Results are results. And as much squawking as they may manage when trying to ‘silence the opposition’, if the Democrat mobs really represented a mass uprising Trump wouldn’t be President right now. But he is, and they’re angry about it. So angry they can’t form the sentences neccesary to tell us what they really want.

So what are they mad about… precisely? It’s actually kind of hard to say. I mean, the left has a ton of names for it, but most don’t amount to anything much.

The problem is this:

For a few decades now, the left has focused very singularly on the tactic of accusing the right of being bad people driven by evil motives. And it served their various immediate purposes for the words they used for those accusations to have very flexible meanings. But that’s been so overdone at this point, that they no longer mean anything at all. And the American public is being asked by them to automatically connect dots that don’t obviously go together.

Are you in favor of Gun rights? You’re homophobic. “Wait…what?” Want Lower taxes? That’s Misogynistic. “Um… wait a sec.” Are you concerned about freedom of speech? That’s racist. “Oh… come on now!” None of it makes any sense. The Democrat party has made itself the party of nonsensical corollaries, and the American public are voting accordingly.

Meanwhile the right has undergone a major change as well. In the past, accusing a ‘conservative’ of having an evil motive would always put them on the defensive and win the point for the Democrats. It’s why they love to play that game. But a new kind of conservative has arrived on the scene. And carrying their banner are Trump and the people around him.

These days the left yells ‘Homophobe!” and the right says: “You’re a liar, go fuck yourself!” They scream “Misogynist!!!” and the right says, “You’re a liar, and go fuck yourself!” They scream “RRRRACIST!!!” And the right says “You’re a liar, you can’t ask any more questions … and by the way, go fuck yourself!”

After decades of preemptive surrender to the opposition on all issue of moral behavior and thought, the right is finally standing up for itself. And the result is that they’re winning. We're not quite at the point where we can have a reasoned debate about things yet, but at least we're not in the permanent stalled position of 'standing athwart history screaming stop' while the left goes over us with a steam roller, pulling trailer after endless trailer full of taxpayer funded $20 and $50 dollar bills.

And this new defiance has put the left, mouths still agape from shock, in a very unexpected position. They don’t really know how to respond to it, so they’re trying a little bit of everything else.

First they’re upping their ‘accusation’ game and instead of maligning motives, they’re now impugning goals. They do this by going straight to the last villains we all agreed were ‘really bad’. “Nazi’s” and “Fascist”, and “actually Hitler” have taken the place of the usual Democrat complaints. But “Free speech” is hardly a Fascist policy, and no one has seen an actual Nazi leader since they caught Adolph Eichmann hiding under his bed in 1960 Buenos Aires. So the new accusation game is also falling on deaf ears just like the old one.

Next, they’re trying ‘make everything into mayhem’ tactics of rioting with mace, broken bricks, Irish confetti, and shutting down the highways and airports. Historically this hasn’t been a very productive tactic for cultural change, and usually just results in swollen prisons. Given that the people in power don’t particularly care what they say, one can assume it will end the same way this time no matter how loudly the activists accuse team Trump of being “Racist, Sexist, Fascist, Nazi Hitler!”

Finally there is the civil service revolt, where instead of doing their jobs as requied by law, they break the law and leak confidential data to the press in an effort to destabilize Trump’s key players. The Democrats in Congress and their friends in the press are having a bunch of fun with this one since it gives them a new villain to summon from history’s dust bin. Suddenly “Nixonian” and “Watergate like” are all the big adjectives in the media. But the problems with that corollary are pretty obvious as well.

For instance, this time the only ones who have made any recordings of dubious legality are Democrats. And the only ones who have clearly broken the law are the Democrat operatives who released them to the media. Sooner or later someone is going to notice the inconsistency. Tucker Carlson is back from vacation on Monday. I don’t expect this will miss his notice.

For now though, it’s getting a ton of media play, and not surprisingly, all with a marked anti-Trump spin. I guess the media would rather talk about that than write another story about how team Trump has made them look like vain, shallow, uselessly partisan hacks again. I’ll bet it’s not wasted on the public though.

I don’t really know where all this goes. I don’t know what happens when one party doesn’t want to do anything but accuse the opposition of being the worst people in the world, and the other party stops caring what they say. Most people in my circles think that the left lacks the moral character to face up to the fact that they did this to themselves, and the result will be greater and greater violence. Personally, I think they’ll just get exhausted from it all, but not without breaking a few windows first.

A lot depends on whether Team Trump keeps the machine running in spite of all the damage that the left has been doing to it. We’ll see. It’s really only one of the problems he’s inherited as President.

The long term solution to the civil service revolt is to make them into former civil servants. Trump got a part of his fame saying “you’re fired” for a living, so I don’t think he’s much afraid of that. And his reputation as a counter puncher is deserved, so I think we can expect the narrative to change again, very soon.

And as soon as it does, so too will the liberal accusations. I don't know what else they can call us exactly, they've exhausted all the common social reference points. Maybe Trump will be something colorful like Hannibal and those American that support him will be new Carthaginians. Those names scared at least a few generations of Romans. Or maybe he'll be Hirohito and we can all be Kamikaze's? No. No... both too remote. Maybe he can be the black death and we'll be his ... what ... rats? Fleas? No. The left isn't that imaginative.
He'll probably just be Osama Bin Laden and we'll be his suicide bombers or something like that. That's a tough one since radical Islam is on the same side as the left, but thankfully for them it doesn't have to make sense. All the other great villains of history are people that the left actually likes.

When I was managing money at Tudor, I used to have to get out of bed at 3:15 AM in order to shower, drive the 99 miles to the office in Greenwich, and still have time to run my morning research programs and build the trades for the day. After a couple of years of this, and a decade or so prior to that working in research at other Hedge Funds, I am a terminal early riser.

2. Milo is going to be on Bill Maher this Friday, and the 'protests' have already started. Some nobody Journalist has already cancelled because he doesn't dare engage in open debate with the nation's most dangerous faggot.

I don't care for Bill Maher, and I never watch his show, even when people I like are on. I skipped Kevin Williamson's appearances several times, and that was back before our friendship was torpedoed by Kevin's vitriolic opposition to Trump, and his anger at me for not sharing it. Maher's snarky oversimplified humor just misses the mark for me. And what I know if his personal life turns my stomach a little.

But to give the man credit where it's due, in this climate it takes some real balls to give Milo a seat at the table. And Milo, as he does everywhere, is certainly going to swat it out of the park. Maher is libertarian enough to keep the egg from splashing on his face personally, but the liberals who have their delusion firmly cemented enough to actually go on his show with Milo present, are going to end up eaten alive.

The psychos of the Anti-Fa and BAMN movements will no doubt have a big issue with this. But it's one thing to go tearing up a college campus where the Administration views you favorably and is happy to repair a few windows for the cause, and another entirely to try to storm Maher's LA based TV studio, which is owned and operated by a big powerful Media institution that will have to pay it's own bills when the place get's trashed.

LA police are notoriously soft on riots if they're in south central, but mess with their meal ticket (the celebrity media superstructure of Beverly Hills and Hollywood) and it's a different thing altogether. If the Rodney King Riots had started right outside Chateau Marmont, the National Guard would have been down there in about 1/2 an hour, with orders to shoot to kill.

I don't know if Bill Maher fully qualifies as a Hollywood A-Lister. From here in New York, he looks more like a B+, by I could be wrong about that. I never understood how the cool kids decide who is in, or out. But I do know that with HBO guarding the door (it's their door after all) the klantifa kids are gonna get an ass whooping if they try anything other than nonsensical rhymes and sign waving. And if they do, it might turn out to be even more fun for me than the broadcast itself.

The Daily Show used to pre-record interviews then butcher the conservative's arguments in the editing room to reinforce the idea that they were stupid, illiterate, hateful, bigoted rubes. Much offline entertainment has come from those few conservatives who surreptitiously taped the interviews themselves, and released the full record later, and I think that contributed greatly to Jon Stewart's desire to get out of the line of fire.

I don't think they do that at Realtime, but like I said, I don't watch it so I'm not really sure. I am sure though that Milo is crafty enough to undermine any childish tricks like that. Like him or not, agree with him or not, Milo is fast becoming one of the most important media voices in America. And when the multi-cultural hall of mirrors of the progressive left finally comes tumbling down, it will be he and Tucker Carlson who we have to thank for it in the largest part.

And in the grand historical context, I think it's supremely hysterical that the future of America is so inextricably linked to the words of a very clever englishman who is really only allowed to join the discussion because he likes to suck off black men. It kind of makes me wonder how the bronze statue of him will be posed at the Milo Yiannopoulos Regional High School of the future. Horrifyingly comedic opportunities abound.